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Show ASHIXGTO. It is the desire of Sec- Wretary of State Knox as it was that of Secretary Ttoot, to put thef consu--v- . lai' service of the United States as yjfZ nearly as it is possible so vo do. upon tne plane -of the civil service. All i r consular appointments to-day are made largely upon the recommendation of senators sena-tors and representatives and other men of political politi-cal influence, but the appointees are given places of the lowest rank in the service and must depend de-pend upon the excellence of their work to secure promotion. Moreover they must pass a satisfactory satisfac-tory examination before the department will assign as-sign them to posts of duty. The administration, it is known, would be glad if it were possible to apply civil service rules to these appointments of ministers and ambassadors, but as the holders of these high diplomatic offices offi-ces are forced to great expense of living, and I heir salaries are comparatively small, no man can become a first place representative of his country abroad unless he belongs to the class of the millionaires. The result re-sult of this is that in many cases money rather than ability fixes the appointments of some of our ministers and ambassa- dors. fi In the past there were many literary 1 I men of standing but whose books did not J bring them in a large revenue, who I sought places in the consular service in J order that they might have a regular in- come, comparatively little office work, and an opportunity also to get the atmos- phere of Europe or Asia or of some other continent to give life and color to the I books which they intended to write. The V literary man to-day has to stand on the same level in seeking an appointment as a consul as that occupied by the lawyer or the merchant. There are not as many writers of books and essays es-says in the service to-day as there were in the past, and in one way the United States government govern-ment is the loser thereby. If some one would go far back through the files of the state department and read the consular re ports contained therein, he doubtless would-rur across some clever bits of writing put on papei hy men who knew the art and who gave interest and color and life to some seemingly dry as dusi trade subject. It is very likely that the reports of some of our ministers and ambassa- Jt ff fl Wjg BHBMW j '" m I! tha descriplion that Francis Bret Harte wrote when he was consu at Glasgow, Scotland, would make delightful read ing- even though they treated on the subject o: wool or, it may e, of Scotch whisky or Scotcl cattle. There have been other literary men in the service, some of them better known than Bret Harte. It is only necessary to give the names of Washington Irving and Nathaniel Haw thorne to prove the point. Not long ago in the service abroad the government had Albion W Tourgee, Arthur Sherburne Hardy, James Jef frey Roach, and George Horton, Two of these men died comparatively recently, but they livec long enough to see some of their writings ap pear in print as public documents and to knovi that the manner in which they . treated theii boxsps ?rr?cA-V(? 7wf?ct ifGtroY v cYr The official document then tells us in the words of its contributor how France was saved by the adoption of the idea of Bremontier, one of the sons of the seemingly doomed region. The seeds of the pine, the "pin maritime" of the French, were gathered and sprouted carefully care-fully and the young trees were planted in places "where the moving sands did not overwhelm over-whelm them until their tough roots had taken a firm hold, their wiry leaves, which loved the briny spume, would offer no resistance to the wind, and, falling about their roots, would give shelter and nutriment until a forest grew which would hold the sands in check and save the threatened interior from desolation." It was Napoleon who seized upon the idea of Bremontier. "His vision penetrated the centuries and he saw the march of the deadly dunes arrested and the desert they had created made to blossom like the rose." The consul tells us that after a century has passed the statue of Bremontier looks down one of the great furrows which lie between the dunes he showed how to conquer. Today, To-day, as we are told, "Ihe dark squadrons squad-rons of the pin maritime are posted on thousands of sandy slopes, faithful guardians in the shelter of which the vineyards and wheat fields rest secure. The gray dunes which were sweeping over the land have become serried fortresses which shelter civilization and prosperity." pros-perity." At least one real live item was contributed not long ago by G. Bie Ravndal, United States consul at Beirut, Syria, to the pages of the consular reports. When this was put into the publication it is probable that the editor-in-chief was on a vacation. Otherwise the Beirut consul's tale would have been put on the first page instead of being sandwiched in between "Rubber Cultivation" and "Commercial Failure Fail-ure in Germany." According to the consular report Pasha Abdul Ab-dul Rahman at one time imported into Damascus Damas-cus a hoosier steam threshing machine through the agency of a gentleman named Michel Ef-fendi Ef-fendi Nasser of Beirut. It is the belief of Consul Con-sul Ravndal that the Indiana thresher will rout the Bedouins of the desert, and he leads up to this climax with a picturesque recital of the facts attending the arrival of the machine and its subsequent career. His tale of the thrcan- er follows: "Its triumphal march through Damascus stirred the White City of the East from center to circumference. On its way into the country it broke down bridges innumerable, but pulled, itself out of the creek beds beautifully, and it had the honor of being started on its pioneer career in the presence of the governor-general of the province, the field marshal in command1 of the Fifth army corps and many other gentlemen gen-tlemen of high station in Ottoman civil and military life. With its self-feeder, automatic bagger, straw bruiser, etc., it is a marvel of ingenuity, in-genuity, and its service to this country in blading blad-ing the way for labor saving machinery, with its accompanying amelioration of industrial and social conditions in a region east of Mount. Hermon, where people live and work as dldl their forefathers when Abraham crossed their pastures with his Chaldean flocks, is beyond estimation. In the Hainan to-day thousand of acres are lying idle; they are likely now fa be reclaimed, and the predatory Bedouin tribe who infest the country will have to retire before be-fore the new order of things." Consular positions do not pay farge sums ot money, but the life Is in many respects an attractive at-tractive one and there are always many applicants ap-plicants for any vacancies which may exist. It is virtually a necessity that the person whe desires a place in the consular service shall be able to speak at least two modern languages; that is, one in addition to English. While the examinations are not supposed to be hard some men who have been through college with credit in their studies have failed to answer properlj , enough of the questions put to them to gi them a hold on the service. At times the United Slates consuls have dangers to encounter. It was exceedingly unpleasant un-pleasant in Spain for some of Uncle Sam's representatives during the months just prior to the beginning of actual hostilities at Manila bay. In Chili and in Turkey within a comparatively compara-tively short time the consuls have had occasion to put up a brave front against the populace and to show the stuff that they were made ol Fresh in the memory of everybody is the awfnj! time which the beleaguered legations had with in the walls of "the forbidden city" in China subjects was appreciated by thousands of their American countrymen. Some of the other consuls abroad, men who made no pretense to literary ability, have turned in from time to time trade reports that were picturesque in their nature and written with extreme cleverness. Not long ago the government gov-ernment decided to issue in a form between a pamphlet and a magazine the Daily Consular Reports. .As the editor of the publication a veteran newspaper man, Maj. John M. Carson, was appointed. With his training he saw to it that the best of the material received from the consuls was given a place of prominence, and he succeeded in making of the consular reports a publication of real interest. In the records of the department there is one report which from the first paragraph holds the close attention of the reader. It was read the other day by one who did not know until the last line was reached whose hand had been at work in its writing. The thought was, here is something worth while. The title of the article was simply "Reforestation "Refor-estation in Fiance," and the first few lines showed little of interest. Then the eye reached this: "One after another great waves of sand, moved by the restless winds that swept across the Atlantic, continued their unceasing march across the fair plains of southern France, burying bury-ing all before them fields, meadows, vineyards, vine-yards, houses, churches, even villages leaving behind them only gray billows, to which clung bunches of bracken, a few starved bushes of of the irresistible march of the gray sand dunes from the shore of the Bay of Biscay toward to-ward the heart of the most productive land in Europe. The description was embodied in a consul's report, and it was so utterly different from the descriptions written by most consuls, or by their clerks, as is more often the case, that the reader's-eye and mind went on wondering, won-dering, with curiosity held in check until the signature should come at the very end. The thought was that here was a consul or a clerk who should be writing books instead of commercial com-mercial pamphlets intended for the eye of the few. The story this official communication is a story and nothing else leads to the final planting of the pines under the direction of Napoleon pines which saved the fields of France. "Wherever the foot of the sand dune rested, there was hopeless blight. A little wiry grass grew in the shadow of the heather and gorse, on which the sheep browsed under the eyes of solemn-faced shepherds perched on stilts and knitting as they watched. On and on crept the phalanx of the terrible dunes, slowly but surely blighting all in their path, not only creating a desert but destroying hope. As long as the winds blew from the west the dunes marched to the east; the desert fires ravaged the intervening inter-vening spaces; flocks grew fewer, the desolation desola-tion more extreme. In the heart of sunny France a desert was established, ever increasing increas-ing in extent and threatening to stretch across its fairest fields the arid ' tha Sahara." |
